Re: Ileum,cecum
From: Rebecca Tucker (rjtucker@peoplepc.com)
Sun Oct 29 13:28:16 2006
Hi Susan,
So sorry to hear you're having adhesion problems. I'm not sure this will
help, but I have had severe problems with inflammatory bowel disease
requiring transfusions due to adhesions interfering with circulation. I have
lost all of my large bowel and some small bowel. I now have an anastomosis
from the remaining small bowel to the rectum. Unfortunately, due to the
inflammatory problems, I develop scar tissue inside the intestine as well as
in the abdominal cavity. A motility specialist and colo-rectal surgeon at
Cedar Sinai Medical Center in California was able to not only perform an
adhesiolysis with my last surgery in December, (9th belly surgery) but was
also able to scope the intestine at the same time and found three full
internal obstructions from adhesions inside the intestine. He was able to
excise the three areas of internal scar tissue and do pathology on them
which resulted in a report that they had not seen anything like this before.
In all the x-rays I've had during all the ER visits for "episodes" of severe
abdominal pain and inability to have BMs, the results were always just
"dilated loops of bowel." Since the bowel wasn't technically twisted or
kinked due to the external adhesions, it was never realized that I was
actually having bowel obstructions from an internal mechanical means. I
thought for a long time that I was absolutely crazy and that these
"episodes" must be a result of severe stress, or something. I put myself
through hell, as I'm sure we all do at some point.
I ended up on TPN for 2 1/2 years and Fentanyl/Morphine pump for the same
amount of time. As you can imagine, I was totally and hopelessly physically
addicted by the time I was seen at Cedar Sinai. The withdrawals and ultimate
cessation of opiate pain meds was more difficult that anything I've ever
been through. However, the pain was so great from the adhesions that there
really was no choice. For those of you who use frequent or constant opiate
pain control, there is a new drug out called Suboxone which works like
Methadone, however, it's short term only and can be used repeatedly for
on-again, off-again pain control such as ours
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